Asch and Collie: Changes in a benthic megafaunal community due to disturbance from bottom fishing 
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Figure 3 
Photographs of the seafloor taken in 1999 at sites 17 (A) and 18 (B). 
(A) Sponges (sp) cover 10.4% of the seafloor in this photograph, and 
bushy bryozoans (bb) cover an additional 2.5%. Species of noncolonial 
epifauna seen in this photograph include the sea scallop iPlacopecten 
magellanicus [pm]), the Northern seastar (Asterias vulgaris [av]), the 
green sea urchin ( Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis [sdj ), and a bur- 
rowing anemone (ba). (B) Encrusting bryozoans cover 74.2% of the 
seafloor in this photo from a shallow, disturbed site. Areas where the 
gravel substrate is a light grey color contain encrusting bryozoans. 
Two pieces of cultch (cu) are visible, as well as A. vulgaris (av) and a 
northern cyclocardia ( Cyclocardia borealis [ c b ] ) . Photographs by Dann 
Blackwood, Woods Hole Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods 
Hole, MA. 
Noncolonial organisms 
In the 454 benthic photographs that were analyzed, a 
total of 117,315 noncolonial organisms were identified, 
which included 73 distinct taxa. After removing data on 
five abundant species with extremely aggregated spatial 
distributions, we found that this data set contained 
1561 individuals. Clear differences between deep and 
